


A Measuring Cup For Compassion

by Bawgdan



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Romance, very subtle romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-08 02:46:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13448883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bawgdan/pseuds/Bawgdan
Summary: “In hatred is love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.” ~ Mary Renault





	1. First

There is a war happening inside of him and it has become hard to determine if it is fear or the general side effects of purgatory. Everyone looks _through_ him. He is a weapon first, a body second, and a person last. If anyone can get that far.

_Look less pitiful._

_But I am all that pitiful._

Genji has convinced himself that it would've been easier to die than exist in his body. With his many doubts, he is damn certain that he isn't exactly living. It's a truth that cannot warp itself into a matter of opinion. Living things die and stay dead.

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"So tell me– what do you think makes a man?" Despite the smoothness of her voice, he wishes the silence that follows is one that doesn't need to be filled, but Dr. Angela Ziegler has asked him a question. And like a kiss between one's thighs or gasp for air when returning to the surface, her question is a demand. _Before_ , Genji would've challenged her–his understanding of manhood had been beaten into him, shoved down his throat many cold dinners.

His body reacts in a dangerously unfamiliar way; a reflex or perhaps some missing desire he lost a long time ago.

"I'm not quite sure anymore," He complies and it hurts. In a way, she too has beaten a thing out of him. Angela shifts her frame from the window, readjusting her glasses on her face. Her name tag is crooked on her left chest pocket.

"How can you not be sure? You are one." Quirking a brow, she shoves both hands in the deep pockets of her white coat.

"I'm just not." As much as he wants to reinvent his masculinity, he has endured the nurturing of his madness for far too long. "It's like knowing Angela first, but Mercy comes later and Mercy is closer to the truth you don't exactly want to believe."

"Cognitive dissonance?" She smiles.

"We both are speaking a language that doesn't come natural to us. That feeling."

"Surreal–the unbelievable aspects of a very tangible dream... _OR_ a very bizarre occurrence in one's life." Angela first, _Mercy second_ , steps forward to sit in her chair. It swivels and she releases a deep sigh. Still smiling. She slides a pin from her coat pocket.

"Your words always sound nice." Truth be told, Genji just enjoys her accent.

Angela doesn't respond to his statement. A very faint tinge of red blooms on her cheeks. Quickly, she rolls her chair towards her desk and scribbles on her clipboard. Her glasses slide down the bridge of her nose. For a long time, there's only the sound of her pen zigzagging against paper.

Genji might've lost his sense of purpose but his perceptiveness of body language has magnified because he doesn't quite move like a man with flesh anymore.

 "Do you feel any pain still?" Her voice has shrunken like she's speaking behind a wall and not a few feet away.

"No." And his voice is even smaller.


	2. Second

Angela isn't used to not being busy. It causes her to feel useless– _the side effect of being an overachiever._ For an hour she flips through a book she's already read twice, re-emphasizing profound passages (that she has already highlighted neon green) with pen ink. She circles an entire paragraph and hides a note for her future self.

Her office is littered with bright yellow sticky notes, books, files, stacks of papers, and piles of discarded sticky notes tabbed rainbow.

Organized chaos. The Overwatch could be described this way. Well assorted chaos. Different colors, shapes, sizes, and flavors of bone-havers.

As she refastens the bun on her head with a pin, there's three hesitant knocks at her door.

It's not odd for any of them to be up this late.

 _"Not sleeping is what separates us from murderers."_ Ana had once said because there's a clear cut difference between killing and murdering.

But Angela is a scientist so death and dying can only be measured by the process. Not the theatrics nor nuance that leads one to death or dying.

A killer is a murderer and a murderer is a killer.

She grabs her untouched cup of coffee and heads for the door. From her pocket, she digs out crumpled up sticky notes and tosses them in the trash bin.

She taps a code on the touch pad wedged between the doorway and her bookshelf. The door slides open with a depressed sigh. It's past midnight.

"I know the answer now." She hears Genji's voice before her eyes can perceive him in the steely darkness of the hallway.

Angela takes an anxious sip of her cold coffee. Her lids are heavy but she musters all of energy to gape at him.

"What makes you a man or simply human?"  She tilts her head to the side.

"First what makes me human– my ability to feel empathy?" He stumbles over his words because he does not think in english.

"Empathy is how we understand relations and feelings. So yes. You are correct." She connects the _O_ to her _R's_ with her brand of certainty. An affirming nod after the stated fact and a short sniffle. "And our cognitive abilities separate us from other animals."

There's a long stretch of silence. The ambient humming and buzzing that engulfs headquarters fills up that silence. Intentionally driven by the hidden cosmos.

"I'm curious to know what makes you a man, Genji?" Her voice echoes and she thinks she sounds strange.

Genji doesn't readily answer. His body doesn't give off those normal human physical cues that signal pleasure, revulsion, distrust. He just stands still as if he is wired to the walls like all of the glossy screens and shiny buttons.

Tensions swells up in her throat. She doesn't know what starts but it manifests an unseen apparition.

Without warning, some part of her had expected (desired), Genji reaches out to take hold of her elbows.

Then she knows immediately, like knowing a silent TV has been shut on three rooms over. The cold metal of his hands pierce through the thick sleeves of her white lab coat. Angela is a scientist first and a woman second.  She acknowledges the tiny alarms that go off inside of her body, somewhat dismissively out of habit.

But this doesn't keep her cheeks from blooming into a pale red. She's ignored being a woman for a very long time. Maybe that's why her office looks like hell.

What they decide to do next could set off a domino effect of irrational sentiments that neither of them needs. Angela's hold tightens on her cup of coffee when he draws closer.

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It's hard to find comfort in her atheism now because never in her life had anyone felt necessary to her mental wellbeing. After a while, not participating in their strange way of having sex feels like going weeks in a desert without water. Every cell in the body needs water and Genji becomes a tall cold glass of it.

Could it truly be possible that life is predetermined? Has every horrible event led up to now?

This must be what her female peers mean when they say that men are the worst thing to ever happen to women...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't anything special just something i wrote at work. errors i will fix later sorry if its incoherent.

**Author's Note:**

> Ffffttt I've only been playing Overwatch a month and I think I'm going to spiral down into a hell tunnel of ships. I just imagine Mercy and Genji having lots of deep conversations during his checkups. This is just a quick prompt. Nothing serious. Maybe one day I will write more.


End file.
